Saturday, August 12, 2017

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (2017) - Thoughts on Silence

The first thing I noticed about WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE
APES is the silence. At first I feared that the quiet opening and subdued aural
composition of the first few seconds of the film was a technical glitch but
then the natural sound effects of people walking through a forest became
audible and I realized that it was intentional. Soon it was clear that sound
was going to play a major role on the way the story was going to be told.

The rest of the movie demonstrated that director Matt Reeves
fully understands how to use sound to tell his story as well as draw an
emotional response and a quickening of interest in the viewer. Often he drops
specific, expected noises out from underneath images in such a way that it
draws attention to violence or action. He is cleverly using his soundtrack to
underline character traits the same way a visualist will use costuming or
lighting to color our perceptions. At one point a character is crouched in snow
with tears trickling down his face and what we hear is his slightly stifled
sniffle. This shows his pain better than any conversation could. At another
point two antagonists scream while attacking each other as slow motion machine
gunfire tracks across a floor and wall seeking a target but all we hear is
breathing and the score. The tension is unnerving and I don't think I could
have had a more emotional response if all the fury and rage were blasting my
ears.

This use of silence often seems wholly natural because of the wintertime
setting. Given that the majority of the story takes place in the harsh cold
it's easy to suppose that the general hush over the story comes from that
choice alone. I would be curious to know if the filmmakers chose to set the
film in the colder months or if it were mere happenstance. Silence over snowy
landscapes and cold frigid vistas is a standard movie visual but Reeves and his
team clearly know that silence is also something useful in both contemplative
sequences as well as scenes of frantic action. On more than just the one
occasion described above gunfire, explosions and screams all drop away and
we're left with only the music or incidental sound effects giving us an
expressive and often profound view of
the emotional content of the violence on screen. This isn't the first film to
use silence in this way but, as a technique, I thought it had gone the way
black & white photography. I'm glad to see a modern director employ the
lack of sound creatively where bombast seems the standard.